Type-erasure generics are a fortuitous platform decision, because its what enables languages on the platform to have a good interop story while still having a more robust type system than Java does -- case in point, Scala, and why the .NET version died.

Exactly - checked exceptions is more of an policy / code style decision, null and NPE - roughly the same and in the end your spider sense just knows where to expect it.

But type-erasure of generics - that's the decision with which we will need to live till the end of time.

- no multiple implementation of same generic interface
- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2723397/java-generics-what-is-pecs
- small performance hits..
- casts
- a lot more but I'm just sleepy right now.

I use and like Java, I love the backwards compatibility which it has - but there are times when crust can be removed with scalpel - and if not, you will need an jackhammer later.